SAG-AFTRA officially went on strike last Thursday after walking away from negotiations with the studios and streamers, represented by AMPTP. The studios thought they could bleed the writers dry (to the point of people losing their homes) and no one would care, the writers would come crawling back. Continuing AMPTP’s streak of impeachable chess-playing, Disney’s once-and-again CEO Bob Iger spoke on Thursday about how concerned he was over the disruption both strikes would cause. Iger makes $27 million a year, based on conservative estimates. For contrast, BuzzFeed has assembled various recent social media posts from working actors (not movie stars) on the literal pennies they’re making from streaming residuals under the current contract:
Brock Powell, a voice actor for popular animation, video games, and anime, shared he only made a “grand total” of $58.49 for 48 episodes of a Disney show produced early during the pandemic. Even more shocking, Brock was once “paid” a negative penny for an entire episode that aired back.
Constance Marie showed that streamers are still showing her show, Switched At Birth. Although the series remains popular, she only receives two, three, or no cents for those episodes viewed. “They’re still making money, but I cannot make a living and pay rent and pay my insurance off of these residuals,” she said, referring to the streaming companies.
Heather Matarazzo responded to a TikTok user who questioned, “What are you elites doing for the struggling Americans that contributed to your wealth?” Her response showed the “elite numbers” of residuals that equaled six to nine cents per episode.
Stephen Glickman from Nickelodeon’s Big Time Rush revealed he made zero in residuals from all the times the show was played on Netflix for two years before moving to Paramount+.
Derek Russo, who was Hunter U-92 for the first episode of Marvel’s Loki on Disney+ [#6 on the callshet], grossed less than $1,000 in residuals despite the series being one of the most-viewed shows on the streamer.
Jack Bensinger from Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out The News joked that he felt like he was “OVERpaid” for seven episodes of residuals totaling a whopping 19 cents.
Kylie Sparks shared they were in one of Netflix’s “most loved series this season,” and they received zero dollars in residuals in addition to being paid a 10th of their guest star quote.
Actor Kris Lofton shared a photo of a SAG-AFTRA direct deposit showing he only made $31.86 in residuals for an entire month.
For anyone wondering, Brock Powell’s $58.49 for 48 episodes comes out to roughly $1.22 per episode, but that’s rounding up. And show of hands: who has rent that is more than $31.86 a month? Anyone? These asinine, greedy studio CEOs truly want to keep all the earnings to themselves until they’re publicly shamed into redistributing the income in a fair and equitable way. Keep bringing the receipts, actors, the truth will out!
photos from Instagram
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